Soil sampling is a most important practice among farmers. It is of the utmost importance for the farmer to understand and appreciate what is the best fertilizer composition for certain crops. This is particularly important with respect to high cash crops and crops that are especially susceptible to disease or to other factors such as nematodes. For example, a sweet potato farmer will rely on soil sampling to enable him to choose the optimum fertilizer composition and to determine if the soil needs to be treated or conditioned for such conditions or nematodes.
In the past, soil sampling has been a very laborious and time consuming undertaking. For a four to five acre tract, it would be recommended to take approximately 15 to 20 separate soil samples. This means that the individual taking the soil samples would have to walk over the entire four to five acre tract and to take samples at appropriately spaced areas within the tract. Unfortunately, the time and trouble of this has discouraged many farmers from undertaking and carrying out a most valuable soil sampling program.
There have been devised automatic soil sampling machines. One such sampling machine is shown in U.S. Pat. No. Re. 30,901. There the disclosure shows a cylindrical drum with a series of soil sampling probes extending radially therefrom. As the device is pulled through the field, the soil sampling projections or the probes are extended through the ground and soil is compacted therein. During the rotating process the soil received within the soil probes is transferred into the container. This type of machine is deemed unsatisfactory because of problems inherent in loading the soil probes and then transferring that loaded compacted soil core into the inner disposed chamber. It is very difficult to envision a machine of this design being efficient and effective in certain soils especially soils that are hard, clayey and are filled with rock and stone.
There has been and continues to be a need for a fully automatic continuous soil sampling machine that is relatively simple in design and which is effective and efficient in performing a continuous and automatic soil sampling operation.